Brown's lost opportunity

The budget was a lost opportunity (Brown's ballot box budget, March 18). Since its election, Labour has done far too little to turn around the lives of those on low incomes and with poor opportunities. A higher take of progressive income tax from the better-off, a liveable minimum wage, affordable social housing and high-quality early years education are the essential tools.

Though the government has put considerable funds into cutting child poverty, research shows this is proving inadequate. Nearly a quarter of the population cannot afford to satisfy reasonable needs. Funding should be assured to provide high-quality pre-school places for every child - a far stronger factor than higher education in guaranteeing success later in life.

Although the minimum income guarantee has benefited pensioners, it remains a stop-gap to repair the ravages of Thatcherism. The next step, surely, is for the chancellor to announce a strategy to establish comprehensive non-means-tested pensions, regulated by the state and intermeshed with the income tax system to ensure that older people have both an adequate basic state pension and a state-guaranteed contribution-linked pension.Margaret WrightGreen party

Complex tax avoidance schemes, while not criminal, are rarely ethical by our liberal democratic values. The tax avoidance industry and its rich clients should be grateful for their reprieve from a general anti-avoidance provision. As an industry that specialises in undermining the intention of democratic legislation and in shifting the tax liabilities of the wealthy on to the rest of us instead, its plea to the government to "be fair" sounds like the whine of a spoilt child.Pete Coleman Tax Justice Network

Gordon Brown's commitment to increase the aid budget is welcome, especially against the Tories' threatened cuts. But his pledge must be followed up with significant new resources and a commitment to reach the UN target of 0.7% of national income by 2008. Despite this target being set over 30 years ago, Britain's aid budget remains just over 0.3% of national income. With Mother's Day almost upon us, we should remember that a mother dies during pregnancy or childbirth every minute of every day. A millennium development goal is to reduce maternal deaths by three-quarters by 2015. Yet this goal and the other seven targets will all be missed unless significant increases are made to aid budgets.Barbara StockingDirector, Oxfam